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OBSERVATIONS
June 25, 2020 |
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 Wingate Lassiter |
Thanks goodness: No Confederate
statues on our Courthouse grounds
Monuments of Confederate soldiers and political leaders associated with white supremacy campaigns have been coming down almost every day since the national outcry against racism took hold following the killing of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police officers almost five weeks ago.
Fortunately for us, the front yard
at the Johnston County Courthouse contains no such
candidates for removal. The only statue is that of a
World War I "dough boy" erected in 1926 --- five years
after the present-day Courthouse was built and a
couple of decades after the erection of numerous
Confederate statues on public grounds throughout the
South around the turn of the 20th Century.The rest of our Courthouse monuments are memorials to Johnstonians who died in the two world wars and other major conflicts since then.
There is one historical marker in front of our Courthouse that's related to the Civil War, and it's not celebrating the Confederacy. Rather, it tells the story of Union General William T. Sherman and his troops receiving news of the war's end as they were camped in and around Smithfield in April 1865 (pictured below)....
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Beneath the World War I statue is a
list of Johnstonians who died in "The Great World
War."And nearby is a newer monument paying tribute to those who were lost in military service to the nation since the First World War.
Many of their names are etched in a stone monument separate from the one shown here.
We pray these will be the last war memorials that have to be placed in front of the Johnston County Courthouse. Unlike the controversial Confederate statues, these are sacrosanct.
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